I have to get out of this body and go back to my own. Even if it’s just for five minutes, I need a break! The thoughts scrolled wearily through Reeve’s mind but there was no chance, no break, no rest no matter how tired he was.
After The Grand General’s eagerness to go back to the office, Reeve had been certain that he was going to get immediate access to the wormhole lab. Instead, he and the rest of the Inner Circle had been in a never-ending strategy meeting for the entire night and most of the morning. They didn’t even break for last or first meal—they simply had stimu-drinks and food brought in—none of which was half as tasty as the meals Nallah had cooked for him.
On the plus side, Reeve now knew all their plans. They believed they had perfected the wormhole technology and now they wanted to invade another planet in their own solar system—a peaceful colony world with a democratic government and equal rights for males and females.
“We will appear in their airspace and crush them before they can even begin to muster their defenses,” Grand General Viceroy thundered. “We will bring them under the flag of our glorious God-King and change their filthy heathenish ways.”
“Excellent!” Another high ranking member of the Inner Circle—Reeve thought he was called Grand General Philpot—nodded vigorously. “Why, do you know they allow their women to have a say in their government? The president of their planet is a female.”
“Blasphemy,” Viceroy growled. “The sooner we take them to task and bring them under our dominion the better.” He laughed. “I’ll have their president as my next wife if she suits me. There’s no better way to teach a female her place than to put her on her knees!”
There was a hearty burst of laughter from around the table which Reeve pretended to join in with. But inside, he felt sick. These war-like, misogynistic bastards were going to do as much damage as they could if he didn’t stop them. But how could he? If he could just get out of here for a moment, maybe he could think.
Well, he supposed he could take another bathroom break. Maybe he could claim that the first meal food hadn’t agreed with him. That might give him a good enough excuse to lock himself in the fresher and take a quick trip to his own body aboard the Mother Ship. When he got back, he could consider again the best way of destroying whatever was in the wormhole lab.
Deciding that was his best course of action, Reeve clutched his stomach and rose from the large, circular table.
“Hey, Parokk, where are you going?” Grand General Viceroy demanded. “We’re in the middle of a strategy session here.”
“Apologies,” Reeve grunted. “That last burra-wrap I ate isn’t sitting well with me.”
Viceroy made an annoyed face.
“Very well but don’t be long. We’re about to go into the Temporal Displacement lab. If you want to see the research, you’d better be ready when we get the security clearance.”
“Understood.” Reeve nodded but inwardly he groaned. Were they really, finally going to go into the wormhole lab? Now, just when he’d planned to try and get back to his body for a few minutes?
Forget about your body for now, you still don’t have any way to destroy that damn lab, whispered a little voice in his brain. You’d better get with it if you want to complete this mission, Reeve.
And he did want to complete it. The Hascions had to be stopped. Also, he was sick and tired of being inside Harryx Parokk. He wanted to go get his own body and come back to convince Nallah to leave with him and never look back. But that wasn’t going to happen unless he could get the job done.
Thoughts churning, he left the never-ending meeting by a side door and wandered down a corridor he hadn’t yet seen. He was looking for the remote fresher—or necessary room as they called them here—he had seen in Harryx’s memory. Instead, he saw a door which made him stop short.
Short Range/Small Arms Armory read the sign on the door. There was a key-pad on the door but no retinal scanner. After ransacking Harryx’s memory banks for a moment, Reeve found the code.
Punching it in, he heard a click as the door unlocked. With a quick look to either side to make certain no one was coming, he slipped into the armory and surveyed the room and the weapons it held.
There were plenty of blasters and death-pods and shrapnel grenades and flame-flingers—enough weapons to kill every last one of the Inner Circle, blow up the lab and burn down the whole damn building, as far as Reeve could see. But he couldn’t help thinking of the other people working here—the secretaries and clerks who were just obeying orders. He didn’t like the idea of killing innocent bystanders, even to achieve such an important goal.
But if he wasn’t going to blow everything up or burn everything down, then what could he do?
Suddenly his eye caught on a box marked Electro-mag pulses and an idea bloomed in his tired brain. Going over to the box, he opened it and looked inside. Laid in an orderly row were about forty tiny, shiny silver devices, none of them bigger than his thumbnail. Each had a tiny red button on one end and a small, flaring emitter on the other. A tiny silver remote was also included.
Reeve stared at the pulses. A handful would easily fit in the pocket of the spare uniform he was wearing (Viceroy had been right, Harryx did keep a spare in his office) without even leaving a bulge. The remote was scarcely bigger, he could hide it in his other pocket—no problem.
Reeve scooped out a bundle of the pulses and examined them critically. For all of their megalomaniac, misogynistic ways the Hascions had good tech. If he was correct about the little devices, setting one off near any kind of computer equipment would fry it like a jarva egg in a hot-wave skillet. It would scramble the data and ruin any delicate tech too—just like a solar flare from space would.
In fact, he might even be able to blame the resulting chaos on a solar flare and get away clean. If he could take Harryx’s body with him when he went back to the Mother Ship, he could be certain the bastard wouldn’t wake up and try to come after Nallah while collected his own body and went back to Hascion Five to get her.
If she’ll even come with you, whispered a little voice in his head but Reeve pushed it away as he methodically pressed the red switches on the tiny devices, arming each one. He would make her understand, he told himself. He would prove to her that he loved her and beg her to come with him. He would—
“Parokk, where are you? We’re about to enter the lab,” called a voice from the far end of the hall. “Hurry unless you want to be left out. I haven’t had time to add your retinal scan to the security clearance yet so you’ll need to come in while the door is open.”
Shoving the armed electromagnetic pulses deep into his left pocket and the remote into his right, Reeve walked rapidly to the door and looked out to be certain no one saw him exit the armory. After he relocked the door, he called out, “Coming!” and made his way back to the Inner Circle conference room.
It was time to do what he had come for.